


Though the Stars Walk Backward

by LadyLethe



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with tiny bits of fluff (really tiny bits), F/M, Trespasser and beyond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 18:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7234543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLethe/pseuds/LadyLethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theirs was a tale for the ages, but this story is no good for heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though the Stars Walk Backward

_“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire,_

_live by love though the stars walk backward”_

_-e.e. cummings_

* * *

 

The story goes like this.

There is a girl, no, a woman. One who grew up amongst the trees. She could be a hunter, a warrior, or her Keeper’s first. Those details don’t matter, but there are some that do. This one, for example: her clan sends her to a house of ice and stone where an explosion opens a hole in the sky and sears a mark in her hand that tethers her to it.

There is a man who was never a boy (Or maybe he was, but it was so long ago that only the stars remember.). He is many things: wolf, elf, apostate, god? (She doesn’t learn some of these until later, and they wouldn’t have mattered, but then they were all that did.) He is many things, but he is mostly a man.

The man-wolf and the girl-woman meet, and even with its sky torn asunder, the world pauses to take note. The world, you see, cannot help what it is. It will always bear witness to the moments that will change it.

He tests her, calls her Chosen when he does not believe, lays her people’s failings in front of her like an offering, and finds her an enigma. She matches his challenge, accepts his criticism and wisdom, but is not afraid to censure him on his delivery of such things. She thinks him proud, and she is so very, very close; only the tense is wrong.

They grow together. He no longer wonders why there are those who consider her sacred. When he breathes her name it is with a reverence none can match. He fights the ever-strengthening pull she has on him, but the battle was lost before even he, with all his astuteness, was aware it had even begun.

He knows two things:

One, she _is_.

Two, she cannot be.

When she looks at him she sees more than civil wars and demons and darkspawn; she sees what could be. For the first time, she dreams of a life all her own.

He calls her _Vhenan_.

The first thing he takes is hers.

Then comes a quiet moment, the moon after nightfall, fireflies by a waterfall twinkling like stars fallen from their rightful place in the sky. She is surrounded by the truth he cannot speak, but she doesn’t _see_ because she is only looking at him.

Ever so gently, he erases the markings she had once held so dear. Lips touch and he can feel the strength of her fathomless soul. She is radiant, and fiercely alive, and all his worst fears realized.

Duty. Distractions. Another world. Daggers he drives through her heart while speaking to himself.

She is left alone, stripped of who she was and bleeding in the dark.

The second thing he takes is her conviction.

Taking his advice, she wields her heart as a weapon (although it is in pieces and the edges are already sharp) to depose a magister with loftier aspirations.

He vanishes, and like the orb, what was broken will never fit together like it used to.

In spite of his words, she wonders if any of it was real. She cannot know that the answer is why he left.

Days turn to months, and months turn to years, but the shards in her chest do not become dull. Some things change, but more remain the same.

This is not the end of their story.

It continues in a way she does not expect. There are those who wish to tear down everything she helped build (she isn’t sure they are wrong), and there are those who wish to use the circumstances to throw the world into chaos. She is beginning to learn there is nothing new under the sun. Still, this time he is not by her side. She never guesses how close he is.

She sees an old god wearing his face on ancient walls, and the truth is a quiet blow.

When they meet again, the anchor that knit the sky back together is burning through her veins like fire.

His magic is killing her, but the words he speaks hurt more. His voice eviscerates as he tells of a choice made in the past and a future where he will do anything necessary to reverse it. He looks every inch the wolf, but there is sorrow in every line of him.

She should never have doubted what he felt for her. It is what carved that sorrow so deeply into his being.

But it is not enough. All she has done is turned his duty into a burden.

He leaves her with a kiss, a promise, and space where there used to be bone and muscle and sinew to connect them.

Last but not least, he takes her dreams.

He cannot suffer the continuation of the world he created, and she cannot allow him to destroy it. In spite of everything, there is no erasing him from her soul.

The child of stone’s words were true; this was always going to be a tragedy.

An amendment: she could never have run.

It is fitting that in the end, she finds him in the place where the sky was held back. They have come full circle.

The world holds its breath. This is the moment it has been waiting for.

“Inquisitor.” The use of her title is meant to be a shield, but it is weathered and too heavy to wield.

“Solas.” His name turns to splinters in her mouth. He flinches at the sound of it, the first arrow finding its way through his defenses.

She cannot show him mercy, not with so much at stake. “Please don’t do this. Think of what will be lost.”

Cracks appear in the Dread Wolf’s mask, and the parts of him that are hers begin to show, “I must, Vhenan.” Ancient wounds bleed into his voice, “I brought everything to ruin long ago. This loss, at least, will lead to restoration.”

He stands resolute, a tower to her tempest. It isn’t a surprise.

“You will lose me.”

Lips curve into the smallest hint of a smile, as though sparing her is the only measure of joy he has been allotted. “We shall see.”

She had thought he might find a way; it’s too bad that wasn’t what she had meant.

There is just enough of his magic left in her…just enough, or so Dagna said. This is not the only way, but it is the only way he remains alive. Just as he will not waver from his path, so she has chosen hers. She will save him, no matter the cost.

The others would never have let her face him alone if they’d known what she had planned.

He turns from her, hands weaving the air like a tapestry, and streams of white light flow from his fingertips.

It is mesmerizing, awe-inspiring, and breathtakingly beautiful; in the end, it will kill everyone she loves.

Even him. Especially him.

She moves, too fast for second thoughts, too fast for him to intervene. He should have seen it coming, but she has always been able to catch him off guard.

The light touches her skin, and a familiar agony takes her breath away. This time the fire will consume her.

He reaches soundlessly for her as she falls, face twisted in horror. He is not the wolf whose plans have been thwarted; he is the man who has lost his heart.

Fen’Harel is gone, and only Solas remains.

More than one means to the same end, yes—but this, _this_ is the victory she paid the ultimate price for.

The world exhales.

The story goes like this.

There is a man, his soul pitted and scarred by grief, who becomes someone else to find redemption for his sins. There is a woman who helps remind him who he should be, who he has always been.

A tragedy? Certainly. But this is not how they should be remembered.

Above all, you see, this is a story about the only force strong enough to make the hero real and transform a wolf into a man, the one thing that will outlive the immortal and outlast time itself.

This is a story about love.

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided I get much too involved with Bioware characters and relationships. I've also decided that I really don't care. Solas destroys me, and that's apparently a pretty strong source of inspiration. Honestly, this is probably my favorite thing I've ever written; and If this story made you feel half of what I felt writing it, I'll count that as a success.


End file.
